LOCKSLEY VILLAGE GOSSIP

"What you got planned for your man's dinner tonight, Bess?" asked Rachel.

"He'll be lucky if he gets a crust of bread, that one," replied Bess with a toss of her head. "Went off early this mornin' to the market. Promised me he'd be back before midday, he did. So where is he now? One guess—he's at the Trip, talkin' and drinkin' with the rest of them fools when there's work aplenty in the blacksmith shop to be done."

"Well, so long as he don't give any tavern wench the eye, I don't care what time my Willie gets home. The house stays a lot cleaner when he's out of it."

Four Locksley women, gathered around four washtubs, smiled knowingly at each other over the ways of men as they sloshed clothes in the soapy water, wrung them out, and hung them to dry in the breezy summer sunshine.

"Better put something on the table, Bess, dear," said Mary with a wink. "Hugh won't do you much good on a crust of bread."

"Well, now, he's al'right," answered Bess, her broad face flushed from exertion and the hot steam rising from the tub. "Not bad when he gets 'round to it. And he keeps me back warm on a winter's night."

"Better watch out, men being what they are, or you'll have more than a warm back to think of."

"God forbid! Eight in me brood now, and the youngest already six! I'd kill him, I would, if he got me with child again."

"Don't blame poor Hugh. It takes two, you know."

"Is it true what I heard about Lady Meg, that she's goin' to have another?"

"That's what my Anna tells me. I'm happy for her. Two fine boys for Sir Guy, so maybe she'll have a daughter this time for herself," said Mary. Her smile as she glanced in the direction of Gisborne Hall belied her careworn face and graying locks. "Aye, and him so good-lookin' and all. Wish I was a young lass again. He'd be just the sort I'd fancy!"

"Aw, Mary, you wouldn't know what to do with him if you had him, you've been a widow too long."

"You never forget how, dear," replied Mary, and the others laughed.

"Why are the wickedest men always the best-looking ones?" observed Rachel.

"Well, now, to be sure he's not so wicked anymore. That wife of his has worked wonders these last few years. Made quite a decent fellow out of him."

"Time was when we all thought he and Lady Marian would make a match of it, remember? But then she ran out on him on their wedding day, and straight back into Robin's arms, by the looks of things."

"Whatever was she thinkin'?" said the irrepressible Mary. "I wouldn't have."

"I'd sure like to know where Lady Marian was for all that time she went missing, wouldn't you? Gone more than a year, 'til she showed up again during the siege."

"Sheriff Vaisey and Gisborne disappeared at the same time, and who'd we end up with? Sir Jasper, and him makin' a bloody mess of things."

"And Robin of Locksley and his men gone, too. Very strange, if you ask me. Not a sightin' of any of them for months."

"I heard they went overseas on some mission, all the way to the Holy Land where King Richard was."

"What were they doin' there?"

"God knows."

"Nothing good for sure. It's a shame Vaisey's ship didn't sink on the way home. Well, we sure missed our Robin, and I was never so glad as to see him back. He's a good lad, that one."

"Lad, you call him, Mary? He's forty if he's a day!"

"I know, but he'll always be a young lad to me. I remember him from when he was just takin' his first steps. I used to look after him for his mum 'til she died."

"He did the best he could to make our lives better, even if he couldn't stop King Richard from getting himself killed, and John takin' the throne just like he wanted."

"Ah, well, Robin's not the Lord Almighty, after all. He's just a man, so it's no use expecting too much, eh, my dears? He got rid of Vaisey for us at least," said Bess.

"That little Eleanor of theirs, my! She's a handful. Lady Marian said to me one day that she's Robin's daughter and his son all in one."

"She can already outshoot most of the men in the village, and her what? Only nine or so? My Matthew gets mad about it and says 'tisn't natural for a girl."

"Aw, leave the lass be. I like to see a girl with a bit of spirit, not all tame and meek as a mouse, bent over her sewing and blushin' and gigglin' every time a boy looks at her. She'll give the boys a run for their money in a few years, and good for her, I say."

"That she will. No man will ever walk all over our Eleanor. Anyway, it don't look like Robin and Marian will be havin' any more children, so she may be the only son Robin gets."

"Lady Marian had a bad time of it, from what Matilda says, so perhaps it's best."

"Speakin' of women, I'll tell you all something strange that my Hugh told me. He says to me that Brian, the cooper from Clun, is dead certain the Nightwatchman wasn't a man at all, but a woman!"

"No! A woman?"

"A woman." Bess nodded her head vigorously. "He says he got a good look at 'him' one night, and saw that he had, you know—" She gestured at her own ample breasts. "Stickin' out there under the Nightwatchman's tunic, plain as plain."

The other women were convulsed with laughter.

"That's right, a woman! And the Sheriff and Gisborne after her and all, and never could catch her," said Bess.

"I heard Gisborne stabbed him, or was it her, once, but the Nightwatchman got away. I wonder what's become of him, or her? He disappeared about the same time as Robin and the Sheriff, and no one I've talked to has seen him since."

"Well, he's not been seen by anyone that I know of in these parts for many years now, and I don't suppose we'll ever know the truth of it, any more than what Robin and the Sheriff were about."

"That's the way of it, my dears, and always has been. The nobles run our country any way they choose, and we work and slave and keep our heads down if we don't want to lose our heads."

"Our Robin and Sir Guy very nearly lost theirs when King John had them arrested. Poor Lady Meg, about to have her baby, and her husband dragged off to prison and her not knowin' if she'd ever see him again," said Rachel.

"My Anna said it was near to breakin' her heart to see her mistress holding tight to baby Richard and cryin' herself sick night after night 'cause she feared for her husband," said Mary. "Rich or poor, it doesn't matter, does it, dears? We all suffer in this life."

"Aye, that we do. But Vaisey's long gone, we've got a good man in Sir William runnin' things in Nottinghamshire now, and King John leaves us alone for the most part. It's quiet here in Locksley now, and God willin', it'll stay that way."